Survivors
by Caladbolg777
Summary: Four witches amidst the new world of the infestation find their ways to salvation.


The Therapist, for that was what she once was before being defiled, rocked back and forth in the shadows of broken concrete. Her claws shielded her bleary vision from the world, and she howled in lament. Her past resurfaced constantly, although she never could quite remember names or faces.

The Therapist sat back, listening to the woes of her once patients, their sorrows shredding her heart as if she suffered their pain. A man, whose face constantly remained blurry, sat in her office, his legs missing from his time as a soldier. Her visions never strayed from the legs, the disfigurement, much like her own state.

She sobbed once again.

A younger girl sobbed in front of her, another patient – this one quite depressed. The girl screamed at The Therapist, yelling debasing insults mixed with pleas of help. And then when the police arrived, glares of absolute hatred mixed with tears of perhaps betrayal.

The Therapist's office remained quite nice - very ornate and orderly at the time. Life sprung from the fake trees, the clean windows, and the mahogany desk. Her claws let their defenses down, and she truly saw the death that surrounded her reality.

Cement walls - broken and blistered, shards of wood, drywall, and metal lay in calm disarray. Corpses, some fresh, some of her brethren – the race of those no longer human – littered the lobby of what was once her job location. Light seeped through the cracking ceiling. Preparing for a possible collapse, The Therapist slowly walked to the front doors in half-expectation her nightmare would end.

Sunlight burned at her near-naked, and quite filthy, body as if she were a heathen to all things sacred. Peeking at the sky, The Therapist bitterly found it to be a perfect blue; with a fair amount of clouds significant to her location in the Deep South.

The Therapist sighed and moved on to an unknown destination – trying her hardest to remain focused on her harsh reality. The screaming girl, the paraplegic, and other patients liked to make their way to her – confront her. _They never wished to talk,_ The Therapist would always lament later.

A blasting pierced her ears, and The Therapist hunched down for a moment. Her claws covered her ears and yet the sound contained the same ferocity. A man, strong and with several designs on his skin, threatened The Therapist with death waving in her face. A hole of blackness, evil, said hello in the form of thunder. The Therapist, quite human, bled swiftly and her eyes clenched. Her teeth grated – she felt a few perhaps crack. If a thumb had stuck in her mouth she was quite sure she'd have dismembered it. Another blast struck her soul, but something was different, The Therapist thought.

The hollow wails of despair quickly covered the blast, and The Therapist's interest immediately piqued. Empty asphalt, a few cars now obsolete in this world, and a few of the savages transformed her sight. The gunman of her past disappeared, yet the fake plants of her office, coated by her humanity and crashed to the floor, remained.

The Therapist stared intensely at the plant, shook her head, wished the image to die, and yet it remained. The wails got louder.

The Therapist sniffed, wiped her hollow tears, and she aimed for the sound. She listlessly traveled, the sound growing closer step by step. Navigating through the parking lot, she watched the savages apathetically. Most of them stood in a stupor, some expelling liquid bile of some form – The Therapist tried her hardest not to watch the savages' humanity slip away any more than necessary.

A wind, wet from the humidity, blew The Therapists' blonde and grimy locks gently yet uncaringly across her face. The Therapist carefully pulled her oil-saturated, shoulder length hair with her blackened fingers. Unnaturally long, and bloodied from previous confrontations with her past, her fingers gracefully slid with each other to a grip of both hands. The Therapist kept her hands together often, if not just for the sole purpose of putting her hands somewhere.

Disentangling her claws, The Therapist fixed her tattered and near-shredded blouse; once a light blue. The blouse itself barely hung on The Therapist's thin body, greatly disguising its new strengths.

The wailing stopped as did The Therapist. Gazing around, she found herself at the back of a small building, perhaps another office, across a two-lane road. Her past life stared at her, a dignified building that fell into disrepair since The Therapist's affliction, from across the street.

The sight of another being that shared The Therapist's situation froze her. The Therapist was astounded. Never in her new life had she met another of her kind. The loneliness often worked wonders on her confrontations. The screaming girl loved to laugh at this pain, saying now The Therapist could understand her pain.

Yet another of The Therapist's kind carefully stood, hunched perhaps is caution, and gazed. The blood red glow of this one's eyes connected to The Therapist's own, and The Therapist tried to speak in her distorted voice.

H….He…He-l….Hello.

No reaction but a simple growl – a sound The Therapist used quite often when words were of no use convincing the disabled patient to leave, or for the screaming girl to quiet, or for the gunman to aim elsewhere.

Backing to a red brick wall, this other being raised her claws in preparation for an attack. The Therapist stopped. Her feminine yet guttural voice continued – No…I…w…wi….will not…Will not hurt. I will not hurt you.

The growling stopped; the other being was quite confused. The Therapist continued, Do…you have…name?

The other being shook her dirty head.

Can…talk? The Therapist pointed.

The other being shook her head once again.

Gunfire echoed in the distance, and both whipped their heads to the distance. A forest with nearly swamp floor rattled in the distance, and voices rang amongst it. The savages in the area, although not many walked these parts to begin with, ran straight to the noise.

Blasts of noise ripped through the savages; blood sprayed and fresh corpses traveled in tandem. The forest released a pair of humans to the open air in the far distance. The other being covered her face and huddled to the cement floor. The Therapist looked on with a small curiosity and a pain in her once-human heart.

The Therapist sighed, her depression increasing dramatically and the patients returned with fervor. Trying with all her might to block the patients' senseless hammering, The Therapist sat with the other being.

The humans blasted a few more of the savages, and one of them yelled "Shit! A pair of Witches!"

The Therapist looked at her companion, and then at the humans as they heatedly discussed strategy. The title Witch struck a chord with The Therapist. _That name,_ The Therapist thought, _seems quite fitting for my appearance. I am probably a form of pure evil to the humans._

The humans moved closer to the pair, carefully and cautiously. The Therapist watched them intently, hoping not to threaten the humans. A light blinded The Therapist, burned her eyes, and the other one screamed in threats. "Turn your light off!" echoed in The Therapist's mind too late, as the gunfire boomed. Screams from the companion mixed with anger and physical pain, and the Therapist watched in horror as her companion fell to blood-coated asphalt.

The Therapist glared at the humans, one trying desperately to bandage his incapacitated friend, and the other wincing in pain. Deep gashes covered the injured man's chest, and The Therapist shouted to them – Why did you kill?!

The humans screamed in terror and the healthy one fell down, "y-you you're talking! How is…Stay back!" He raised a gun to The Therapist, his face shifted instantly to the gunman. The gunman shouted at her, his muscles bursting in anger and fear. He was desperate.

The Therapist blinked away the gunman, and the human was in near tears – scared for his life. She rooted herself ten feet from the humans, knowing quite well any step closer would incite her into rage. _I do not wish to kill these two, but at the same time they killed her..._

The Therapist shouted – Go! Run! – before she could wallow in this new and dangerous hatred any longer. _The last thing I want to be is another of the savages._

The humans scampered away, and The Therapist fell down to cry – mourning the loss of her first chance to end the loneliness. Her tears, hollow by the nature of her affliction, stung like her gunshot wound in another life. The Therapist's mercy enticed her depressed nature harder than any of the patients in recent memory. Despite her efforts, The Therapist succumbed.

The Therapist wandered with the sole purpose of leaving the scene. Through veiled vision, blurred by tears and tangled by her weed-like fingers, she wandered towards the forest. The trees enveloped the sky and she welcomed the darker atmosphere.

Silence reigned over her wails. The Therapist gained more control, sucking in air, watching her patients disappear before thin air. _Strange, they were not here before._

Voices, distorted, inhuman, echoed against rotting trees, their roots spiking above dirty water in patches around The Therapist. A cackling laughter diverted her attention to a bloodied swamp – the work of the humans. Savages somewhat floated amidst the three-feet-deep liquid bloodshed. One of them different than the rest, for this one had an immense arm and a scar-laden torso, breathed softly. Its dying breaths.

The cackling intensified, and a savage came to her. Hunched over this savage had a scrunched face and overarching spine. The Therapist sickened slightly at the sight. The savage regarded her with caution, paused, and then charged from its island nearby. The savage brushed aside any corpses with forceful shoves, and it hopped at her. Preparing for the worst, The Therapist bore her claws and screamed in hopes of intimidation.

The creature hopped to her, much like a rabbit or ape of some demented sort, trying to get ever so closer to The Therapist. She waited patiently. The creature, mere feet from her jumped. The screaming girl looked ready to tear The Therapist's neck out with her hellish hands.

The Therapist blinked. With the savage's arms preparing to grasp her head, The Therapist swiped at the its neck.

Yet another object clouded The Therapist's vision, and she watched the savage before her dirty feet. _A horrid creature_, she confirmed and walked further away. This time she walked faster and with a sound mind. _Was that thing once human like me, and what was that other one? The savages look remotely human, but not like me or those two creatures…_

* * *

The humans all stared at The Therapist in absolute contempt. Eight to be precise. Her patients were nowhere to be seen. The Therapist sat on the grimy cement, huddled and shivering. The humans' icy glares pinprick on every pore of The Therapist's skin. Disturbed on every level, she rocked back and forth like an infant who grasps for love that was never given. _A lack of touching at an early age, _her professors would say in a past that was her own only in name, _causes more aggressive behavior._

The Therapist recalled an old documented experiment on monkeys; newborns. Separated from their mothers at birth, the monkeys wailed, raged, rocked in despair, and fought – viciously - when put together. The children were scarred for life – doomed to live the life of a mere animal that could only rage. Yet most importantly they remained ignorant of their sources of injustice. A connection from life was severed.

The Therapist stared at her grayish skin, felt the leathery skin around her jaw with her razors – and she finally stared back at the humans before her. All of them armed and prepared for an onslaught, yet calm with their collective hatred. A marvelous poker face on each of them, she noticed.

The Therapist despaired at her inability of stoicism. Although they did nothing, their presence, a malicious existence, compelled The Therapist to the ground. She remarked at her own strength even to take in her surroundings. She could see nothing except herself – darkness veiled itself founded by jutting trees behind her. The Therapist remained under the scrutiny of a street lamp, its rays singeing her, and the humans stood outside its glow – scorching her.

The Therapist could only see, only wished to see, their feet. She tried to imagine the remaining image of these people, yet her mind was unable. Much like the night that surrounded her, she could only imagine a void for each of their identities. Nothingness, a black suction from this was pulling her into an unknown place. Perhaps this was what frightened The Therapist most of all – her inability to escape what she cannot know.

Death would be a welcoming ceremony had The Therapist an idea of what was to happen to her subhuman self. A poem she once read, or perhaps she did not even read this poem – The Therapist had so many memories she could no longer identify her own mind's fabrications.

The poem she read, although the name escapes her, as all good titles, names, and identities share, but she remembered the main character quite vividly. A mariner, soaked, slow, almost undead, a stench of death in his wake, and his face – although most likely equally horrendous – was hidden. The mariner walked the earth long after his would-be as punishment. _Perhaps this is my fate?_ The Therapist wondered, _An unending journey in which I cannot live or die, but simply stagnate. _

The mariner had done a horrible deed; that much she remembered. This creature told his story to the humane - _Perhaps as atonement for his monstrous existence. Then…I must atone? For what? _

The humans moaned a little; the sound's otherworldliness quite disturbing. The Therapist's head shot up. Red glows, sixteen, illuminated the darkness around the humans. Blood caked their mouths, rotting teeth languidly resting within. The humans had a certain sway The Therapist had not recognized – she blinked. Blood red phased to white, a color she never appreciated. White always blinded the eyes, a catalyst, but never the color of blindness. The Therapist much preferred black.

Given a warning growl, the savages backed off. Much to her displeasure however, the savages remained in the area. She wanted nothing more for them to leave. Their mindless nature sank The Therapist's hopes in communication. Given the circumstances, she wanted to cry from helplessness.

The Therapist stood, her hands to her face, and she travelled once again. Moaning hollow cries of the underworld, she saw a trail of fog lighting up the night's shroud. Cold, hard asphalt coursed her feet, a road to seemingly nothing.

Savages where nowhere to be seen - nothing but a yellowish haze enveloped her. Her claws disappeared, and she sniffled. Trekking further into pelts of mist The Therapist paused as a shape took form slowly. Black amongst white, the screaming girl came forth from the veil.

What do you want, The Therapist asked.

The screaming girl shook her head.

Why are you here?

She looked left, then right. She softly responded,_"I can't see anything…"_ Her voice was nearly a whisper, yet her voice surrounded The Therapist. Entering from all angles, The Therapist never hoped to shut out her patient. She must help all in need, whether the need is real or not.

The Therapist looked to her ward, What would you like me to do?

"_Nothing. Just move on. The others are coming soon. The gunman wishes you dead. Be careful…"_

Why does he-

"_**HHYEEEEAAAAAAAAAA!!!" **_

The Therapist covered her ears, scrunching her eyes in pain. The shriek collapsed all sense of will. She screamed along with her patient, praying her patient to leave. Huddled to the unforgiving ground, tears broke as she heard the sounds of gunshots.

Booms, atomic bombs to her near-bleeding ear, echoed followed by an irrationally loud _"WHERE IS SHE!?"_

**Boom - **_"COME OUT! STAND UP!"_

She quickly opened her eyes, preparing to run for her life. A pair of boots stopped in her vicinity. **BOOM.** The Therapist shrieked. The very man before her played in her mind, a pistol pointed to a humane form long since dead.

Looking up to the gunman, the haze sharpened, brightened. Electrical lighting coveted the natural. Plants, healthy and a lively green faded to view. The cold asphalt warmed to the touch, softened to carpet.

The gunman remained in his business suit, his appendage pointed to her – wishing nothing more to explode and drain her life.

The Therapist looked around in horror, her hands on her head in dire concern. Her office returned. This was truly a welcoming gift and a cruel joke to her. The gunman remained aiming. His eyes hardened to a look that only lives in the few with nothing to lose. Hatred seeped from his pores in radiating waves, visible to the naked eye. His eyebrows rose, _"Now you go to HELL, DEMON!" _

He fired.

The Therapist remained stunned. She heard nothing. Wetness flowed from her shoulder in small rivulets, yet she felt no pain. She stared back to the gunman. She spoke softly, Stand down. You can do nothing to me.

"DIE!"

**BOOM.** The gunfire fazed nothing as she dodged and charged him – her claws extended. She soaked her hands in red. Her assailant screamed. The screaming girl joined him from amidst the void.

The Therapist blinked.

Yellow embraced her, warming despite the chill of the night.

She rose to her feet, a headache inbound. Something was missing, it seemed to her. Perhaps the light gave her a slight sense of salvation, though The Therapist knew better than to believe in such trivialized hopes. Her vision seemed to be clearer though The Therapist knew this was extremely unlikely as well. Looking beyond her own incandescence of violence and the street lamp's reach of light, she saw perfectly clearly another faint glow of red. Another of her kind, sobbing softly in the distance.

This particular creature of despair huddled herself into the remains of a train long off its track – though the proverbial track was nowhere in sight. On this lone highway from The Therapist to the other witch, no savages remained. Only a cluster of cars, crashed, or left for dead.


End file.
